


I'm not your son

by redshadowalchemist



Series: The three sons of Hohenheim [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: 2003 anime verse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Envy is like lust, Hohenheim's a plus parenting, Homunculi, Pre-Series, he wants to be human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26050945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redshadowalchemist/pseuds/redshadowalchemist
Summary: William Van Hohenheim, son of Dante and Van Hohenheim had been a bright boy, curious, sweet, charming. If anything he resembled his future half brother Edward physically but in personality was more like his other half brother Alphonse. He was the sort of boy who brought home birds with broken wings and he was a beautiful golden child who smiled easily.All in all he was absolutely nothing like Envy.
Relationships: Dante & Envy (Fullmetal Alchemist), Dante/Van Hohenheim, Envy & Van Hohenheim
Series: The three sons of Hohenheim [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891093
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	I'm not your son

**Author's Note:**

> I don't feel the fact that in the 2003 anime verse Van Hohenheim had another son is explored enough. 
> 
> I did publish a version of this on fanfiction net several years ago, I had the same user name there so it should be fairly obvious but I am rewriting it now.

William Van Hohenheim, son of Dante and Van Hohenheim had been a bright boy, curious, sweet, charming. If anything he resembled his future half brother Edward physically but in personality was more like his other half brother Alphonse. He was the sort of boy who brought home birds with broken wings and he was a beautiful golden child who smiled easily.

All in all he was absolutely nothing like Envy. 

The first thing Envy knew was his name, and the second name, that wasn't his...William. 

The next thing he remembers is pain, blinding white hot pain flooding his form and a voice screaming, it was only later he realized it was him screaming, a gold haired man and a woman leaning over him. The woman had wept and memories came flooding back. Memories that he knew weren't his, to go with a name not his, and when he saw his reflection in a mirror for the first time, he also saw a face not his.

The woman was called Dante, he recognized her as “mother” she had smiled but when he had turned and acknowledged “father” his supposed father had been more hesitant, maybe he knew, even then what he had brought forward was not the son he had loved. In spite of this he had still smiled and embraced him. Envy knew then, he had no love for either of them.

He remembers what they did. They'd murdered him, or the person he was based on anyway he wasn't sure, his head still felt scrambled. They'd fed him their special elixir that they used to cling to live all those years and it hadn't worked, first he'd started to shake, he hadn't known why at first, then he hadn't been able to sleep, his emotions had been all over the place loosing his temper at the slightest inconvenience or sobbing over nothing, he had thought he was going insane. Then he got weaker and weaker until his kidneys failed and his lungs stopped working. She'd confessed in the end, his mother, that they had laced his food with elixir...of which one of the key ingredients was mercury, hoping to give him their immortality. The same immortality William, who had been more noble than Envy ever was, more noble than his parents too. Had refused when on his eighteenth birthday they had originally offered. He'd refused them so they had taken his choice away and robbed him of a normal span of years. Now he would die at eighteen, had they not poisoned him he may have lived to seventy or so, fifty plus years they stole from him with their reckless arrogance. With their belief that they knew better. William may have forgiven his mother and father before he died. But Envy wasn't William and he didn't. 

He isn't sure if he hates William or not. Sometimes he does when expected to be him. One look at the mark on his thigh, the ouroborous marks him out as something different no matter whose face he wears.

They called him “William” and treated him as their son. However, as time went on the difference, although subtle at first became clearer to his “parents”.

William Van Hohenheim had been a young man who smiled easily, while Envy also smiled easily his were twisted smirks whereas William's had been open smiles. 

William had been a gifted alchemist, hungry for knowledge. He had lacked the easy genius his younger half brothers would later possess but he had made up for it with hard work. Envy has no soul, just the memories of a dead young man, he can't do any alchemy himself, not that he particularly wishes too. He has none of William's curiosity or desire to improve the world around him. 

Althougth Dante and Hohenheim both called him “William” there was a certain amount of disappointment in their eyes when they scanned his features as if seeking to reassure themselves they had brought back their son and not something else.

He found out almost by accident that he could change shape easily and delighted in tormenting the village children by becoming some sort of monster. William would have played with the children, given them sweets even. Envy had frightened them and he had laughed it was a cruel laugh not like the man he was supposed to be. Then one day he comes home covered in blood, and no one can find one of the local milkmaids. Dante had turned away tears in her eyes but Hohenheim had confronted him. Envy had just smirked and Hohenheim had stared into his eyes and then recoiled in horror, “you're not William, you're not my son.” Envy never saw him again.

Envy had been furious they had called him into this world. This world he could not appreciate, he found it hard to feel things, he had no soul and that was not his fault, he never asked them to bring him here. The blame for that rested squarely on Hohenheim and how dare he abandon him after doing that to him.

Dante stops calling him "William" after that, he has long stopped pretending and calling her "mother". It had felt so wrong when they called him William but at the same time he had wanted to be William, so badly that was why he had pretended for so long. But he couldn't pretend to be human, he didn't know what it was like to have a soul. He could fake compassion for a while if he could be bothered to do so but he couldn't fake having a soul.

So he changed his physical self to suit his personality. Purple eyes and green hair, green the colour of Envy. Anything else but gold, he wants nothing of Hohenheim and nothing of an ordinary human either no blue or brown eyes, no dark hair, normal human colouring is nearly as bad as Hohenheim's Xerxesian gold. He is a monster, so he will look like one. Let him be on the outside as he is on the inside. He changes his figure too, William was as tall as Hohenheim though skinnier. Envy chooses a muscular lithe almost androgynous form. It suited how he felt better and Dante went with it, it was easier to ignore what had been done. Easier to tolerate the moster when he didn't wear the face of her dead son. Easier to call him by his true name he became her lieutenant. Despite all this he is still shocked the first time she addresses him as "Envy". A jolt, almost like regret when he realizes he would never be her son again. No, he reminds himself he never was her son, he hates the fact he has these memories of feelings that he cannot experience himself. He can't love her but he remembers loving her. 

He is envious of the now long dead Willian Van Hohenheim and he is envious of the humans who can experience feelings. Envious of everything and everyone.

He stays with Dante simply as he doesn't know what else to do. He wants a soul, he wants freedom. Left to fend for herself Dante becomes desperate, she promises Envy she can turn him human, but he knows her, better than any other homunculous, he knows she is lying. Unable to perform any alchemy himself he thinks she is his best chance at gaining a stone, so he stays with her. Waiting for the moment to take the stone for himself. Despite everything she trusts him more than the others, because he was first, because he is based on William.

But he's not her son.

**Author's Note:**

> It is mentioned in a few sources the son of Hohenheim and Dante (who is often called William in fanon sources so I used that name), died of mercury poisoning. Mercury used to be considered a key ingredient in the elixir of life. If Dante and Hohenheim were immortal surely they would want the same for their son. Did they accidentally kill him? It would definitely explain why Hohenheim choose to try and return to mortality rather than trying to turn Ed and Al immortal too.


End file.
